As surprising as it may sound, play can be a virtuous activity. It can be morally good to have fun—play can be a meritorious act. According to Catholic theology, there is an entire virtue dedicated to playfulness, and it is called eutrapelia.
Doing some activity solely for pleasure is not, in itself, immoral. Indeed, that is what dessert after meals and play are. St. Thomas Aquinas explains that humans need play in order to recover strength of mind, writing:
Just as man needs bodily rest for the body’s refreshment, because he cannot always be at work, since his power is finite and equal to a certain fixed amount of labor, so too is it with his soul, whose power is also finite and equal to a fixed amount of work. Consequently when he goes beyond his measure in a certain work, he is oppressed and becomes weary, and all the more since when the soul works, the body is at work likewise, insofar as the intellective soul employs forces that operate through bodily organs…Now just as weariness of the body is dispelled by resting the body, so weariness of the soul must needs be remedied by resting the soul: and the soul’s rest is pleasure. Consequently, the remedy for weariness of soul must needs consist in the application of some pleasure, by slackening the tension of the reason’s study…Now, such words or deeds wherein nothing further is sought than the soul’s delight, are called playful or humorous. Hence it is necessary at times to make use of them, in order to give rest, as it were, to the soul. (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (ST), II-II, q. 168, a. 2)
The Purpose of Eutrapelia
The purpose of eutrapelia is thus the renewal of one’s mind—mental relaxation. Play is not an end in itself. Instead, play or recreation refreshes us so that we can continue our proper work. Mankind was put in the garden and told to work, not told to play (Gen. 2:15). We should not be working during the week so that we can play on the weekend (“living for the weekend”). The reverse is the case. We should be playing on the weekend so that we can work during the week.
According to Aquinas’s classification of the virtues, eutrapelia falls within a genre of virtues which regulate our interactions with others. Specifically, eutrapelia is the virtue that moderates our playful or unserious relations with others. Since eutrapelia moderates our play with others, it contributes to our fellowship with others. Implicit in the ideas that eutrapelia is both the virtue which moderates play and the fact that it moderates some of our relations with others is the fact that play is ordinarily a social thing. We should play with others, not on our own. This does not mean that we must never play alone, but that most of our play should be social.
3 Qualities of Virtuous Play
Like all aspects of human life, play must be moral—that is why there is a virtue about play. In general, Aquinas gives three moral warnings about play. First, “the pleasure in question should not be sought in indecent or injurious deeds or words” (Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 168, a. 2). The way we are playing cannot be evil—one should not sin in order to have fun.
Second, Aquinas says that the pleasure should not be too extreme, “Another thing to be observed is that one lose not the balance of one’s mind altogether” (Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 168, a. 2). If our play is “too fun,” if the pleasure is so great that we lose our ability to think and control ourselves, that is a problem.
Third, play needs to be done at the appropriate time and place. Aquinas says that we should “conform ourselves to persons, time, and place, and take due account of other circumstances, so that our fun befit the hour and the man” (Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 168, a. 2).
Striking the Virtuous Balance
In typical fashion, Aquinas goes on to note that both the excess and the deficiency of eutrapelia can be immoral (one can play too much or too little). Clearly the deficiency (wherein a person plays too little) is very rare. The vice of excess wherein one plays too much is much more common. Aquinas explains that play can be excessive in two ways. First, when one desires pleasure so much that one will do sinful acts for pleasure. Second, when one desires pleasure too much and so seeks it in bad circumstances, when one plays at inappropriate times/places. These two forms of excess correspond to the first and third general moral warnings about play.
It may still be unclear when play becomes excessive. To understand this, we must keep in mind the purpose of play. Play’s purpose, as we saw, is to rest our mind and recover intellectual strength and focus. Therefore, play that goes beyond goal and cuts into the time for other activities could be excessive.
Can Video Games Be Virtuous Play?
Video games are a popular form of recreation, especially among young men. But are they a good form of play? Are they good eutrapelia?
There is one main concern with video games as a form of play. It is their built-in reward systems. Video games are designed to give the players rewards (upgrades, tokens, prizes, achievements, etc.) at various points in the game. These rewards cause an immediate increase in dopamine. This continuous reward system is an incentive to keep playing—one can always have more fun if one keeps playing. This can easily lead someone to play video games excessively, for too long or at inappropriate times. By this, one would be sacrificing or neglecting other goods for the sake of more fun.
Now, Aquinas does say that excessive play is only a sin of grave matter when one is willing to commit other grave sins (such as missing Sunday Mass or severely neglecting studies, work, or other obligations) in order to play more. In clinical terms, this is somewhat similar to a video gaming addiction (technically known as “Internet gaming disorder”), wherein one plays so much that it leads to negative consequences throughout one’s life. The similarity lies in the fact that one continues to play video games despite serious consequences. About three percent of the world’s population could be categorized as having a video game addiction. Thus, there are a large number of people, usually more males than females, who seek excessive pleasure by playing video games.
The fun of video games is not too intense, but it can be too long-lasting or enduring. In most forms of play, the pleasure dwindles over time— the law of diminishing returns applies to most play. But in video games this effect is reduced due to the built-in ongoing regards system which are specifically designed to encourage people to keep playing. Due to this, people may enjoy playing video games for longer periods of time than they should. Also, since video games are not a physically exhausting form of play like sports, there is less physical limitation to how long one can play them.
Playing video games is not immoral according to Aquinas’s account of eutrapelia. Yet, one should use them cautiously. Most video games entice the person to keep playing for a long time by their built-in ongoing reward systems. This encourages people to play for longer than eutrapelia would allow. This is not to say that one should therefore never play video games as a form of eutrapelia, but that if one does so, then one must be careful of how long one plays. So, St. Thomas Aquinas would play Minecraft, for a little while.
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